


Loss

by al3th3ia_ous1a_apor1a



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:14:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26971972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/al3th3ia_ous1a_apor1a/pseuds/al3th3ia_ous1a_apor1a
Summary: Trying to understand loss as an exercise in futility.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor/Supergirl
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	Loss

How can this happen? How can this be?  
There is no ending, there is no peace  
The darkness is so close  
The light so quickly goes  
And now it's all gone  
Now it's all gone

\- _Come to this_ , Natalie Taylor

* * *

The seconds had felt like hours, the hours - weeks. Now three months in and it feels as though it had all happened mere minutes ago.

It was an ordinary Tuesday in the middle of summer. It wasn't particularly hot, not particularly cool, there were no surprise rain showers or thunderstorms, no low pressure areas building at the fringes. The news was typical, busy-busy-busy, a mixture of the inane, the trivial, and the utterly heartbreaking realities of impoverished communities fighting against the atrocities visited upon them daily - shootings, bombings, kidnappings, abductions, tortures, rapes, slavery, murders - and you try, really you do: your wife keeps working on ensuring the very survival of your Earth, keeps working to bring quality and efficiency- developing, bettering, growing - working, working and working to free whole generations so they can let their hearts and souls sprout and bloom with passion and life. And you, you're everywhere in the world these days, grateful, so so grateful, _finally, truly, fully,_ that so many heroes are in this one Earth. You'd dismantled a handful of human trafficking rings all over South East Asia and the Middle East in the past two months and you've been working simultaneously on child abductions in India for organ harvesting and a cybersex ring involving very very young minors, the memory that most children involved were between five and eight still makes you nauseated enough to actually physically hurl into the nearest wastebasket; and really you feel as though you're making a real difference on a monumental, worldwide, reality altering way. You're making this world better, safer, not just for generations and millennia to come but for your daughter. Your own daughter. Yours. Yours and Lena's.

You think it's your fault. Really, how can it not be? You're her mother and you weren't even there. You're in the Amazon putting out a fire when the call goes through. You don't know how long it takes before you make it back to the apartment and the moment you're on the same ocean, the same coast, the outskirts of your city, long before you've actually arrived do you hear Lena's cries and pleas. And you'd tried to push past it, tried to push it out and away, tried to drown out the racing and breaking of her heart, the agony in her voice, the wailing of her soul. You'd tried to hone into Sasha's heartbeat but it was silent. Gone. Just gone.

It's three months in and you still hear Lena's agonized wails in your dreams, still see her clutching Sasha tightly in her arms- still, prone, lifeless in her arms. And still you try to listen for Sasha's heart. And still is it gone. Still is _she_ gone. Gone. For good. For forever.

You know Lena thinks it's her fault. Hers. Hers for not having been there, hers for being at work, down in the labs, trying to save the world. You know Lena wonders these days what it's all for, what the point of all of it is, what the point of saving this world is without your daughter in it. Lena _knows_ the answer to that. _You_ know the answer to that. But these days, _neither of you_ can find it in yourselves to _care._

 _You_ know better. _Lena_ knows better. But it doesn't really matter, does it? Not when she's gone.

You've never asked for an exchange, not really. Supergirl isn't a job, reporting isn't really either, it's a calling, an honor, a responsibility that comes with your abilities both alien and human, thrust upon you and it's one you've always borne with humility, a privilege to be part of so many lives, an instrument of hope and liberty. But for once you wonder if the world couldn't have afforded you just one more gift, one more blessing, one more _life._ Just one more, just hers, just Sasha’s- for everything you've done and everything you're still willing to do.

Don't you deserve it after all you've done? All the lives you've saved? Doesn't Lena deserve it after all _she_ has? Doesn't _she_ for all the good she's brought worlds?

But if you don't, if _neither_ of you do, is there still anything you _can do_ to deserve it? To deserve her light in your lives?

You know Lena wonders the same thing. You know Lena is angry- at herself, at the world, at everything,- at perhaps even you, for letting this happen.

But she says it's pointless. The words, the sentiment, the wondering. It's all pointless.

So many things are pointless these days. So many. So very very many.

Lena draws away from you, interminably caught between cursing everything in the world for a senseless, utterly utterly senseless, pointless, inexplicable, tragic loss, and throwing herself into her work. She works at all hours of the day in her home office- building and building- and ultimately destroying them all again.

She's mad and heartbroken with grief and there's little you can do but let her feel and rage, escape and deny for slivers of moments of reprieve, caught, always and ultimately by the irrevocable starkness of reality of the loss of your child.

You hear a loud thud and shattering a few doors down. She's just destroyed another contraption. The fifth in the past three months. You know whatever it is, whatever it _was_ worked. Lena toils hour after hour, day after day, week after week, from light ‘til dark, back to light and dark again. She builds ‘til it works, ‘til it does what it's supposed to do, ‘til it's perfect, ‘til she's sure whatever it was could change this world for the better- And then she destroys it.

You're not sure if she does it out of anger - anger for a world that's denied her daughter life; anger that this world will welcome a new and better day when her daughter will never wake to another. Maybe it's spite and vengeance. The world's taken her daughter. It's taken her daughter's light and she'll offer it none of hers. They'd denied her hers, and she'll deny them theirs.

You understand. You know better but you understand anyway. You do because with every life you still save you can't help but wonder if you've earned your daughter back yet. Can't help but wonder if it's the last life you'd needed to save to deserve her light and if you'll be blessed and given the gift of her life again. But it's not the case. And you _should_ know better, really, you should, but you don't know why you just _don’t._

Lena's right. It's pointless. It's all pointless, and like her, you don't really know what else to do either.

And you think that's part of the reason too. It's in Lena's very being to create, to build, to grow and better. And with Sasha gone, it's all she can do to stay sane. To build, to create, to Lena, is to _be._ To stay idle would cause madness of loss to overtake. So she gives in and creates... Anything to try and stave off that inexorable darkness for a fleeting moment. But it _is_ fleeting. Temporal. Ephemeral. As was Sasha's laugh. Her big brown eyes alight with purity and joy, the powder sweet scent of her dark brown skin, the tight grip of her chubby little fingers, her soft stomach, her wiggly little toes - perfect, perfect, wholly and completely _perfect._ And now gone. Gone. Just gone.

Lena can't go into work. Can't leave the confines of the apartment. She's all but shut the world out. She hovers outside the nursery, door closed, her palm flat against the wood, unable to make herself turn the knob, unable to make herself open it and walk in. Unable to yet look at anything directly connected to your daughter.

You're the exact opposite. From the moment you wake to the moment your eyes close, you surround yourself with her eyes, her face, her giggle. You sit in the nursery, her toys, her books, her blankets, her scent, the last place she was happy and breathing. Also the last place she wasn't... But you can't think about _that._ You can't let your mind see her like that again so you replace it with the warmth of her smile, those beautiful, perfect brown eyes. And her laugh. You think of her laughter and replace it with that.

"It won't stop hurting." Lena had said out loud yesterday. Quiet. So very very soft and quiet, and you could only wrap your arms around her and tell her you know... Because you don't think there's a moment you've stopped hurting either.

Lena blames herself for not having been there, blames herself for all the minutes and hours, the days, weeks, months and years you've both lost. It's clearer to you today in a way it hasn't been in the past twelve weeks. She regrets every decision she's made outside of your family. She regrets walking out your apartment doors to go to work, regrets every board and investor meeting, every scientific conference and consultation, every new project, machine, device, and invention that's taken her even a second away from your daughter. She blames the universe, the world, the unknown, unnamed powers that be. She blames God. She blames Rao. She blames every deity ever in existence. But none of it compares to the blame she places upon herself.

Lena remembers everything about Sasha, every little perfect bit of her. She remembers the sound of her cries, each and every one, the hungry one, the wet one, the one simply asking to be held. She remembers the feel and sound of her sleeping peacefully, fitfully, so beautifully and preciously _alive_ against her. But Lena remembers every time she walked out that door, out and away, leaving her with a carer. It's those thoughts, those images, those memories Lena can't help but torture herself with. She remembers every time she left, every time she walked away, but she doesn't remember, _can’t_ remember all the times that she too had chosen to stay.

Lena can't bring herself to remember how she hadn't returned to work until two months before the loss of Sasha, how a carer hadn't been hired until then, how for seven months you'd both cared for her on your own with little outside help. Lena can't remember the many missed and rescheduled meetings she'd had in those two months back at work because she was constantly rushing home because Sasha had a fever, or a toothache, or was simply happy and babbling about nothing in particular at all, or the mornings she simply couldn't leave because Sasha refused to let her go. Lena doesn’t remember the annual gala for Luthor Corp that she had actually missed because Sasha's teeth were coming in and the child was distraught with discomfort. Lena doesn’t remember launches that were pushed back, nights at home she'd work overtime while Sasha was asleep poring over blueprints and calculations so she can get caught up and try to stay abreast of the company's interests.

But here she sits on the balcony of your penthouse apartment, silent tears streaming down her face in the resounding silence of what once was your home. It's empty now. Filled with darkness, devoid of the light of your daughter and now too your wife.

"I don't understand." She says, voice raspy. You tighten your hold on her. You don't know what else to do. "I don't understand because there's nothing to understand. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter even if I did. It doesn't change it. It doesn't change anything."

And she's right. She's right as she so often is. There's nothing to understand at all.

"Is her life the price for my sins? Is it the price of _his?_ For all the lives he's taken?" She asks her voice breaking and your heart along with it at her words. You didn't know there was any more of your heart left to break but there it is. "I'd spend my life paying for them, Kar. I'd _do_ anything. _Give_ anything. But why did it have to be her?"

And you feel the same way even though you know logically that's not at all how the world works. And you know Lena does too. She does. She _does._ But you're left with nothing but the pain you both feel. You're left with nothing but the empty silence of your home, devoid of Sasha's warmth and light, and you don't at all really know what to do. You've lost your words and you hold on to the only thing, the only _person_ who feels the pain as profoundly as you do.

Sasha was loved by your whole family. It's more than just you, more than just Lena that has lost her. She had aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents all of whom loved her deeply. You know this, you do, because like her mother, like your Lena, how could anyone _not?_ But at the end of each night, at the beginning of each day, though your sister undoubtedly loved your daughter, her niece, her namesake, she and her wife still have a home, a world, filled with _their_ children's light. They get to hear their sons' laughter, see them smile and pout, hear them bargain for one more song, one more story, and ultimately watch them grow into the remarkable young men they will undoubtedly be... And you and your wife... You and your wife have lost your own little girl and there's never going to be another moment to hear her giggle, see her beautiful brown looking into yours, no more messy breakfasts where baby food gets into absolutely everything, no more crying in the middle of the night... And fuck, just _fuck,_ there's so much you'd give up just to have her crying in yours and your wife's arms just _one more time._

"She loves you so much, Lena." It's small and strangled, but you manage to the get the words out. There's so much you're feeling, so much you need to say because in no reality is the loss of your daughter her fault, in no reality can your daughter's life be the price of her imagined sins or her brother's very real one's,- but you just can't seem to string the right words together to give it all sense because there's so very much in your world that just doesn't make sense right now. But you tell her the most important thing you can, the undeniable most precious truth- that your daughter _loves_ her. And it doesn't at all even occur to you that any emotion or sentiment might end with death. Your head and heart are still unable to reconcile the permanence and irrevocability of her loss, as if you can somehow earn her back. But you can't, and though some part of you knows that, the rational, logical part of you, it's a part you still can't, at the moment, bear to listen to.

It's the first time Lena's really said anything, the first time you've really tried too. And it's difficult. It's so so difficult. Because there's so much you've lived through, so much you've lost, so much you've had taken away from you, and you know, by God and Rao and all the deities, do you _know_ that there's absolutely nothing to make sense of. There are no reasons. There is no bargaining. There are no issues of _deserving_ or _gifts_ or _blessings_ or shitting fucking good or bad _karma._ There's absolutely no sense why it had to be _yours._ And you know that that's terrible. It's an absolutely horrific thought that it could be anyone else's, that any innocent life can be cut short just as your child's has been, that any parent would have to go through what you and Lena have and will continue to do so for the rest of your lives. Because you didn't just lose her three months ago, you've lost her every single day since then and it's how it will be for the rest of it. And you can't _help_ it. You can't help but think and wonder and _rage_ about why it had to be _her._

Lena turns to you, her eyes piercing, boring into yours and your body trembles, your eyes welling with tears. You turn away, unwilling to let her see you break, willing willing willing yourself not to fall apart. But Lena doesn't let you. She doesn't let you pull away from her, she doesn't let you withdraw and hide, doesn't let you push the reality of your daughter's loss away anymore.

"She's gone." And had it been anyone else but Lena you likely would have raged. But it is. It's _Lena_ and really, she's the _only_ soul on this Earth that gets to _say_ those words to you.

"I... I can't-- I don't--" It's all you manage to choke out. You can't, _won’t_ admit out loud that you don't know how to _change_ that, how to _fix_ that, how to _bring her back._ You're her mother, you're not supposed to give up, not allowed to.

"She's gone." Lena says again- softly, firmly- and despite feeling what semblance of control you had left of yourself, your world, quickly crumbling into nothingness, you stay and pull her into your arms because you know her own words are likely tearing her up inside as well, and you'll figure out how to help her put herself back together again, you _swear_ it, even if you never figure out how to do it for yourself.

"It's not your fault--"

"Then neither is it yours."

"Le-"

"It's _not._ " She says fiercely. And you can only clutch her tightly against you because you just don't know what to say. Everything is pointless. Everything you're thinking and feeling is pointless.

It doesn't matter that you feel like you could have saved her had you been there, it doesn't matter that you think Lena could have too if she had been, because crazy as it might seem, you honestly believe your wife could have kept her there by sheer force of _will._ And really, how utterly insane is that? But it doesn't even matter, it just doesn't because she's gone now and nothing you feel, nothing you say or believe, much less think is going to change that. And still you can't help but _hope._ Hope that you're just plain wrong, that it matters, that it all actually matters.

Lena takes you by the hand, she pulls you inside the apartment, leading you to your bedroom. You hover by the doorway, the both of you, neither of you have spent a single night there together since your daughter's loss, you either in the living room, your studio or the nursery and Lena in her home office, but Lena pulls you inside firmly after her momentary hesitation and you let her because she's the one thing that makes sense in your shattered world and you've always sworn you'd deny her nothing. She leads you to the bed and you sink into the mattress with her and something breaks inside of you completely and you start to sob, unable to get yourself in control at all. But Lena only holds on to you tightly and you think her arms around you might be the only thing keeping you together, keeping you from shattering into the many pieces your world had shattered into just three months ago and dissolving into the ether.

And you don't know how long you stay like that, how long you cry, how long your heart and soul just break and break and _break,_ but she holds you throughout until the torrent of words start surging out of you and one moment you're asking her for forgiveness, then promising her you'll figure out a way to fix it, figure out how to get her back, and then begging her to help you figure out how to get her back, pleading with her to bring her back and then sobbing and sobbing and sobbing even as the words pour out of your mouth with the ultimate realization that there's nothing, absolutely _nothing_ you and she can do.

There's a reason you don't say the words out loud. You couldn't bear to put your wife through the madness of your own grief, but she holds you and cries with you as though she understands, and she _does,_ you know she does because Sasha was yours and hers, _always yours and hers,_ and there _is_ a feverish dark madness raging within you that only _she_ can possibly quell.

So you tell her. You tell her every dark, disgusting, horrific, cruel thought you have; you tell her every miserable, desperate, deplorable, wretched idea and feeling; you show her your anguish and despair; you show her your fear and desolation; and she holds you and listens and lets you be angry and wrong... She lets you be weak and horrible and wrong wrong wrong, and still she _loves_ you.

She doesn't tell you it will get better, doesn't ask why after the loss of worlds do you still break at the loss of one life, one soul. She doesn't say anything other than that she loves you and you think it's the only truth that helps, the only truth that matters in this moment- that she loves you and is with you, and that unspoken promise that she always will be.

You have no need nor desire for empty platitudes and promises, and Lena's are anything but. She's your light and your hope, and remains so even now when she's as broken and burdened with grief as you are.

And when the sun rises to a new day- another day, another dawn, the very one that was supposed to mark your daughter’s first year on this earth - you clutch her tightly against you, holding her as she holds you, loving her as she loves you. And there's still so very much that doesn't make sense, still so very much you can't see the point of, but Lena is right there with you. 

You still don't know what to do, you still don't know how to proceed, you still don't know how you're just supposed to continue living... But the world continues to turn. It turns and turns and turns without pause, without reprieve. It turns without care for your loss, your grief, your heartbreak.

It turns.

And breathing is all you really know to do, all you really _can_ do. Breathe even when she no longer does. Breathe even when she no longer will.

And the world? It turns.

**Author's Note:**

> Illustrations are commissioned and not my work.


End file.
